GeForce 8600 GTS vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 950M, which has GPU core speed of 914 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 Stream Processors, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M should be quite a bit (about 239%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8600 GTS. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25760 (239%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M is quite a bit (about 171%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9224 (171%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.